'This bridge is going to get rebuilt'

Tuesday

Jul 30, 2013 at 9:50 PMJul 30, 2013 at 9:50 PM

Community comes together to resurrect historical site

Karen Bota karen.bota@sentinel-standard.com

The Flat River has begun to claim Whites Bridge.

The charred remains of the 146-year-old, covered wooden bridge plunged into the water after an early morning fire July 7. The state's fire marshal has confirmed the cause of the fire, which destroyed the historical site, was arson.

Since then, the current has broken apart the timbers and is moving the debris downstream, where it lays in two large piles. For now.

"We need to get that bridge out of the river," said Paul Phenix, the driving force behind the Rebuild Whites Bridge effort that has sprung up through Facebook across Ionia County and beyond.

Phenix and Rebuild Whites Bridge will hold a "meet and greet" at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Central Riverside Park in Belding to help get the word out about the project.

Between Phenix's apparent unstoppability and the passion community members share for Whites Bridge, he just might do it.

When Phenix started the group on Facebook after the fire, he had 500 members in a day and a half, he said. Now there are 1,100 members of the main group, plus individual groups for Portland, Ionia, Lowell, Saranac, Belding and Greenville. The Facebook page has almost 8,500 likes.

Phenix plans, not only to remove the bridge remnants from the Flat River, but to raise enough money, supplies and volunteers to rebuild it. One estimate put the cost of a replacement bridge at more than $850,000. A similar bridge replacement project in Vermont cost $2.6 million.

The problem at the moment is the cost to remove the bridge debris, said Ionia County Road Commissioner managing director Dorothy Pohl. The road commission does not have the equipment to do the removal, and hiring a company with a crane would be an expense the road commission can't afford.

"Law enforcement is finished with the site, and the county does not plan to remove the bridge from the water," she said. "The (Department of Environmental Quality) was here last Thursday. They did not say anything about removal when they were down there. If they wanted it out, they would tell us."

Pohl said she is in touch with Phenix and is working with his group.

"I support him in whatever they do," she said. "The road commission is committed to working with him."

A company out of Holland contacted Pohl, and she passed them on to Phenix.

"He's going to do it for free, if we pay for the gas, which is about $700," said Phenix. "The guy from the DEQ said I need a permit, which is $100 and takes two to three weeks. I have calls in to Senator Stabenow, Senator Levin and State Senator Emmons to see if we can get a rush on it."

Phenix said the DEQ representative also told him if a cable can be hooked to the wood to drag it to shore, and the machines don't enter the water, he won't need a permit.

"We are going to see what we can do," said Phenix. "The Holland guy lives 4 miles from the bridge. He's hoping they will be able to recover it. If they don't, we'll form a group and get it out."

The slowest going at the moment is fundraising – not because no one wants to donate, but because Phenix wants to be sure everything is in place, including filing for non-profit status, before he accepts money.

"I'm a career military man and I still carry my integrity with me. I'm not putting my name on stuff until I can guarantee the money can be spent properly," he said. "I want you to be able to go into a store, put a dollar in the canister and know you are helping the bridge, not buying a case of beer or a pack of cigarettes. That's why we're very careful what we're doing. Everybody wants to give now, but the way its running is for your protection."

Phenix has a board, a doing-business-as status with the state, by-laws, articles of incorporation and a checkbook to take in small amounts of money for incidentals. Once he incorporates, he can file to become a 501(c)3 with the IRS.

"Once we get the non-profit set up, we'll try to entice Meijers, Amway and Steelcase into it," he said. "They aren't going to donate if they can't write it off as tax-deductible."

Phenix has been astounded by the support and offers of help he has received. A man in Massachusetts who builds bridges for a living offered to rebuild Whites Bridge. A woman who is an engineer contacted him and said her father, also an engineer, was project manager for the Ada covered bridge. He's willing to donate his time to the project.

"Bob Cusack told me, 'Back when I was 14 years old, we planted 33,000 pine trees over in Saranac. I would be humbled if you would use those trees to rebuild the bridge,'" Phenix recalled. "People are willing to donate all kinds of trees. I've got a guy in Belding who owns a saw mill operation, and he's willing to come cut these logs. There are companies willing to cut, transport and cure. Just think how much that will save us on the cost."

Phenix said he met Gov. Rick Snyder when he came to the Ionia Free Fair, and the governor gave him his support.

"Yesterday his constituent liaison called me and said, 'We're here if you need us,'" said Phenix. "I said, 'Wow! You know what? I need you.'"

In addition to Pohl's assistance, Phenix received a call from Keene Township Robert Simpson to thank him for what he is doing for the bridge.

"You could not ask for more community support. Sometimes I read on my computer what people are willing to do and I get choked up about it," he said. "There's just so much caring. All the communities are involved. The bridge played such an important part in everybody's life."

Phenix, who lives in Alma now, is one of those for whom this is a labor of love. When he was a young boy, his grandparents showed him where they had signed their names on the bridge. His parents signed their names, and he signed his. Three decades later, when he had children, he showed them where all the generations before them had written on the bridge.

"To see and touch where they signed, it was magical," he said, adding that people have commented to him that a new bridge won't be the same, that he can't bring back the old bridge. "Our motto is 'Bridging generations, rebuild history.' I look at it as a clean slate. This generation of people will sign it and the next generation, and the next generation. It's starting all over again."

Until the non-profit is up and running and fundraising can begin in earnest, Phenix suggests community members sign up for the Rebuild Whites Bridge Facebook page both for their community and also the main page. He also encourages supporters to buy a Rebuild Whites Bridge T-shirt, which is providing seed money for permits and licenses. T-shirts are available for $20 each from Wreckers Sports in Ionia, at the Belding "meet and greet" tonight and at the Kent County Youth Fair in Lowell beginning Aug. 5. The groups' website, friendsrebuildingwhitesbridge.org, will be up soon with a donation portal.

"Honestly, we're not going to have a problem getting this money. This bridge is going to get rebuilt," said Phenix. "The Greek bird that rises every 500 years from the ashes is a phoenix. It's ironic the way things worked out. My Chinese fortune cookies tell me I'm going to succeed in my projects. It's mystical."